Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Hollow

An infinite field of white stretched out before Ayil's eyes. He stared at this desolate scenery for what felt to be hours, and it brought him a sense of dread that was different from anything he'd ever felt.

'How long have I been walking?' he wondered, glaring into the distance. 'Maybe it really is unending.'

He had dismissed the thought countless times, but... perhaps with sorcery it was possible. Ayil closed his eyes, and slowly, a sense of bliss came over him. There was comfort in the abyss of his mind.

Sitting in a lotus position, he focused purely on that darkness. Hunger soon came, and so did the fatigue from the long night, forcing him to sleep.

"We fear sleep is not permitted!" the ethereal voice boomed, bouncing off Ayil's eardrums like a thunderclap. 

Ayil writhed, hands clutching his ears. His eyes watered from the pain, as his mind went afroth. '...That wasn't just noise!' he screamed internally, trying to counteract the bells going off in his head.

Gradually, after several hours, the pain alleviated. Ayil regained his senses, and swore to never sleep again. Even if it meant dying. After all, death was better than torture. 

"If my purpose here is to be toyed with to death, I suppose I'd rather just be dead," Ayil said softly, massaging his temples. He sighed. "... Maybe running away was the better choice?"

He felt the clothes on his back with a reverent finger. '...No,' he thought honestly. 'Just being able to wear something like this makes my choice the right one. Would I have ever been able to afford even this if I ran?'

Impossible. He'd be dead in a year or two. Possibly by disease or starving, most likely by stabbing.

'Endure.' He sat up, smiling. 'If you die, you get buried not in rags, but in these quality garments. Is that really bad?'

The passage of time barely mattered, and the ravenous hunger it brought wasn't something new. Ayil sat quietly, imaging Claire's semi-nude body in his mind's eye, then carefully inspected his clothes. Going as far as removing them, and counting it's threads. 

He had no idea what the materials used to make the clothes were called, but that didn't stop him from appreciating their beauty. 

And so the insane loop repeated itself.

"My, Ayil. Have you already lost your mind?" the ethereal voice said. "Well, maybe not? Either way, please, indulge in this hardy dinner."

In the distance, a cream-coloured bowl of food was pushed through a slant in the wall, along with a bottle of water.

Ayil gratefully ate the bowl of porridge and downed half the water. He lay on his back, hand on his satisfied belly.   

"Dinner, is it?" he said, staring at the ceiling with squinted eyes. Though the white light still seared the periphery of his vision. "Does that mean I've been here for an entire day, or a few hours? Probably the former."

***

Ayil screamed. It was so loud, his vocal cords seemed to rip away. "How long?!" he yelled, just barely finishing his sixtieth bowl of porridge. 

That, in of itself, was a praiseworthy action. After all, the area he had been living in for God knows how long, smelled of fecal matter and urine. All of his excrement sat in a corner of the room, he didn't just crap and piss everywhere, he wasn't that much of an animal. But that, obviously, did little for the revolting smell permeating the torture chamber.

Ayil crumpled to the floor, exhausted. The fatigue was maddening. He thought about starving himself, but that went against his very nature. All his life, he had been forced to starve, now he had a fixed supply of food and he was supposed to refuse it? How absurd. Not to mention starving was the most painful thing he'd ever experienced.

The thought of his body cannibalizing itself sent frigid shivers down his spine. 

And he didn't want to die, not really. He had just found out God hated him, who knows what torments awaited his immortal soul after death. 

"Before that...!" Ayil held an arm up, as if reaching out to grab something. "I must have it all...Hear me, you omnipotent arsehole! I will make your world my playground."

Luckily, in this space, death by fatigue seemed impossible so far. And the hallucinations brought by his overtaxed brain, eliminated the boredom  he experienced the first few days of his solitary confinement.

"Rejoice, for you have passed the second test, Ayil," the all too familiar voice said emotionally. 

The walls folded outward to reveal a dimly lit hall. Ayil glanced around, but cringed his entire expression closed as an unholy scent—worse than his own—assailed him. He blanched. Diluted in the fumes of raw sewage was death. 

He peeked slowly, eyes teary, and soon discovered the source of the morbid scent. Personnel dressed in white skillfully stripped countless corpses, before unceremoniously tossing the dead in large bags, then dragging them away.

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"What...?" Ayil whispered dumbfounded, noticing even more children—some as old as he is, others much younger—having similar reactions.

Suddenly, a masked man dressed in bright red uniform appeared atop an stage at the very front of everything. "Children, children!" he said, adjusting his gasmask. As soon as he spoke, Ayil and the rest of the children seemed to recognised his voice. "Please form groups of ten, and follow your 'Leader'. And please remember do everything your Leader ask of you. He will guide you. That is all."

The grouping was chaotic and random, but after a few moments Ayil found a group. The Leader of the group was a tall white-clad man with a sturdy built.

"All right, foll—"

A violent roar interrupted the Leader, followed by the sound of a small electrical crackling. Staring into the direction of the disturbance, Ayil witnessed a group of children attack one of the white-clad personnel. They were slowly, and painfully, butchered with magic.

Ayil gulped down a sticky ball of saliva, steadying his breath. 'Don't try anything stupid. Got it.' he thought.

"Let's go," the Leader said coolly. He led the children down into a hallway, then up some stairs before stopping. "Girls on infront of the right door,  boys on the left. You have exactly twenty minutes to clean up."

Ayil watched the Leader walk off before entering the men's showers. There was no privacy within, just a sterile room fitted with rows of showerheads jutting out from the wall. 

He didn't think on it too much, immediately pumping soap onto his head from a dispenser and begun cleansing his body.

"Are we supposed to wear this?" Ayil said to himself, grabbing some white garments from a large basket in the corner of the room. He shrugged. "My clothes smell like the insides of a rat anyway. Might as well."

"You usually talk alone?" some random kid said, he was about a head taller than Ayil, and his body muscles were nicely defined. He had thick purple bags beneath his eyes, like everyone else, his eyes were also glazed with fatigue.

"No, only after I lost my Goddamn mind," Ayil said with a sigh, pulling the bland shirt over his moist head. "What, was all you did in your pit pull-ups? Now, you're trying to pick a fight by pissing someone off?"

The dark-haired man laughed. "I was simply curious, friend," he said, smacking Ayil's shoulder lightly. "Might want to watch that temper of yours."

"Don't you touch me so casually," Ayil said simply. "But I will thank you for the advice. I hope you can heed mine: Keep your curiosity to yourself, friend. Not everyone is as nice as I am."

The man snorted as Ayil walked away. Outside, the air felt fresh on his skin; though it smelled a little damp. It was calming. 

Soon, all ten of the children stood in the hall, there were four girls and six boys; another thing Ayil noticed was that each individual was rather handsome, and or beautiful. 'I assume Desoll likes them pretty.'

"Ah," the Leader said, beckoning the children over, "you all finished on time. Wonderful. Now, come with."

They followed, up another flight of stairs to a door. The Leader stood infront of the door, a black pouch in hand. He plunged a long finger into the bag. "Here are keys, on these keys are numbers; your room numbers. Your rooms are beyond this door."

"What a roundabout way off talking. Is he some kind of dullard?" someone in the crowd said, earning muffled chuckles.

"Yes. Indeed, it is," the Leader said, softly rattling the key in his hand. "The one who said that come forth."

The same crowd all turned heads to a tall, dark-haired man. 

"Well, with haste." The Leader smiled beneath his mask, and gave the younger man the key. He opened the door. "Go on. Please."

The young passed through, and to everyone's suprise, alive. "Next."

Slowly, the crowd's numbers subsided and it was Ayil's turn. He walked passed the Leader into what seemed to be a haven. Unlike the depressing scenery so far, the walls were brightly coloured with beautiful monolithic decor that spoke to him spiritually.

Ayil glanced around, there were entrances on both sides of the corridor. At the end was an 'exit' or that's what it said on the red doorway, then again, he wasn't confident in his reading ability.

 '...3-C,' Ayil thought, sticking the key in the keyhole, unlocking the room. 'It seems doors on the right are B's while the ones on the left are C's'

Entering the room, Ayil's vision narrowed on the large bed in the far corner of the room. With the last of his will, he locked the door behind him and dove into the silk covered bed. His body sunk into the mattress as his consciousness melted.

"...Heaven," he said, embracing the euphoric comforts of sleep. "This has to be Heaven..."

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